Better livestock feeding to increase productivity and boost food security in southern Malawi

A new research-for-development initiative is helping smallholder farmers in southern Malawi increase the productivity of their livestock and crops to enhance food security. The agribusiness Crop Livestock Integration and Marketing in Malawi project or CLIM2 is improving animal feeding and crop farming practices and market access for farmers’ produce. Continue reading →

Smallholder dairying: better marketing or better feeding – which comes first?

The milkIT project hypothesis was that improvements in milk markets would lead to increased productivity by farmers. This video explains the approaches followed: linking farmers to markets (using market ‘pull’ to drive productivity increases) and farmers’ productivity increases which will attract the market to them. Continue reading →

Enhancing dairy feed interventions in India and Tanzania – three messages from the MilkIT project

In December 2014, the MilkIT project (Enhancing dairy-based livelihoods in India and Tanzania through feed innovation and value chain development approaches) held final workshops in Lushoto and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. On 11 December, team members met in an ‘Outreach Meeting’ with various stakeholders and partners. The aim of the meeting was to continue synthesizing the key insights of the project through interactions with a wider community. Continue reading →

Inception of a new project on livestock feed development for dairy value chains in India and Tanzania

Following completion of the IFAD-funded Fodder Adoption Project, IFAD recently agreed to fund a further project on feed enhancement for dairy value chains in India and Tanzania. The project will be implemented by ILRI with CIAT as a major partner. We are calling the project MilkIT (Milk in India and Tanzania) and the grant agreement … Continue reading →

Innovation, scaling out and market development: Fodder adoption project synthesis report

Under the title ‘Enhancing Livelihoods of Poor Livestock Keepers through Increased Use of Fodder’, the goal of this IFAD-funded Programme was to improve the livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in Ethiopia, Syria and Vietnam in a sustainable manner through increased access to and adoption of fodder interventions. With activities in Ethiopia, Syria and Vietnam and … Continue reading →

Building local stakeholder networks for livestock development – a case study from Syria

We have been introducing a series of Technical Advisory Notes arising from the IFAD-funded Fodder Adoption Project on this blog. The last of these describes implementation of the project in Syria. Dr Asamoah Larbi (ex of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas; ICARDA) writes: “Feed scarcity prevents small-scale sheep and goat … Continue reading →

Building on local pockets of success: Some lessons on the process of up-scaling fodder and cattle development in Vietnam

Development projects can often point to local pockets of success: examples of where a project has had real impact on smallholder livelihoods through some successful interventions. However the real challenge comes in taking such success to scale – this involves somehow embedding the processes that led to success into the ways of working of local … Continue reading →

Planted forage as an entry point to catalyse stakeholder action on broader livestock value chain issues – experiences from Ethiopia

Feed scarcity in smallholder systems is a key constraint to improved livestock production in developing countries. However, development efforts which have taken a narrow technology-focused approach to dealing with feed scarcity have had limited success. In the Fodder Adoption Project, we experimented with the use of local stakeholder forums in our sites in Ethiopia to … Continue reading →

How can farmers move from being ‘cattle keepers’ to ‘cattle producers’? A case from Vietnam

Across the developing world, millions of smallholders keep livestock as a means of storing capital and as an insurance against hard times. This is a vital function for livestock – but it is associated with poverty. As demand for livestock products increases and systems become more intensive there are opportunities for subsistence livestock keepers to … Continue reading →

Credit through traders – enabling the poorest to engage in cattle fattening in Vietnam

Lack of cash to purchase inputs is a major barrier to poor livestock keepers escaping poverty. Short-term credit is a potential solution but often local micro-finance institutions are unwilling to offer credit to the poorest due to lack of collateral. This was the situation faced by the poorest livestock keepers in Ea Kar District in … Continue reading →